Bergeron gives sportsmen viable voice on commission

STEVE WATERS Outdoors

August 19, 2007|STEVE WATERS

The recent appointment of Ron Bergeron to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is good news for those who enjoy the outdoors in South Florida.

As a private citizen, Bergeron quietly battled behind the scenes and worked with state and federal legislators to protect the Everglades and the Big Cypress National Preserve. Now, as an FWC commissioner, he can have an even bigger impact.

Bergeron, 63, is the CEO of Bergeron Land Development, Inc. - "Mainly I build highways," he said - but his company recently built Stormwater Treatment Area 2, a wetlands that cleanses agricultural runoff before it enters the Everglades.

He lives off U.S. Highway 27 on the outskirts of Weston, but he practically grew up in the Everglades. Bergeron, who has a camp in the 'Glades and one just north of the Big Cypress, knows more about the River of Grass than Marjory Stoneman Douglas did, and that knowledge can now be put to good use as the state and the federal government attempt to restore the Everglades.

One thing Bergeron has repeatedly stressed over the years is that the health of the Everglades isn't so much a matter of water quality as it is water quantity. "Eighty percent of our damage in our Everglades has been due to quantity of water," he said.

Bergeron spends a lot of his free time on his airboat in the Everglades and he has seen the damage done by high water levels: tree islands that were destroyed and deer and other mammals that drowned or starved to death.

What bothers him most is the damage could have been avoided. But the freshwater portions of the Everglades, which extend from the Broward-Palm Beach county line to Tamiami Trail, are treated as dumping grounds for excess water by federal and state agencies.

Bergeron's solution is something he calls shared adversity. Rather than flooding the water conservation areas in the Everglades, he said Everglades National Park should get its share of water to ease the burden.

Another issue Bergeron is big on is public access to the Everglades and the Big Cypress addition lands. The National Park Service has dragged its feet for a decade on opening the addition lands.

"They need to open it up and have designated trails in the addition lands," Bergeron said. "It is not a wilderness area."

Bergeron was involved with the creation of the preserve in 1974 with then-U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles and those who fished, hunted, frogged and rode their off-road vehicles in the Big Cypress. He said he has letters from Chiles stating that one of the primary purposes of designating it as a preserve was to ensure traditional recreational pursuits.

Keeping South Florida's public lands open will continue to be one of Bergeron's priorities.

"I fight for the sportsmen and the Gladesmen and the cultural traditions of the citizens of Florida," he said. "Once they run the sportsmen out and the conservationists out, they've lost the eyes and ears of the environment.

"The Sierra Club and the Audubon Society want all public land to be wilderness with no access, no education, no enjoyment, no nothing. I believe we can enjoy our public land in a respectful way and manage our wildlife properly.

"My grandfather was a game warden in the 1940s and I was a 3-year-old boy getting in an airboat in the 'Glades. I love it because I've been in it. If only my grandfather was allowed in it, I wouldn't be trying so hard to save it."

And to think, some organizations have opposed Bergeron's appointment because they say he's a developer and doesn't care about protecting Florida's wild places.

"I'm more of a real estate investor and all the developers have bought my properties," he said. "The funny thing is, nine out of 10 environmentalists live on property where I ran cattle and developers bought the property from me."

Steve Waters can be reached at swaters@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4648.